Wattle in the bottle

Wattle fresh, wattle fleeting.

It's funny how a flower can spring forth (spring, ha!) with barely a warning. One day I walked out my front door and my tiny garden of evergreens was drenched in golden flowers.

Front garden fronds of gold, 2015

Officially we hit Spring today!

We have the spring rains to come, Father's Day, a significant family birthday (13 year old boy) and footy finals, though our teams have released us from duty this year. Sigh. These are the markers of this month in Melbourne.

But today, it was the wattle which sent my reflections back to last Father's Day, when I took Dad a bunch of wattle from the garden, knowing how he loved the fragile flower. Drooping around the lillies, the wattle added whimsy to a somewhat sombre occasion.

Wattle at mum and dad's, 2014

The Father's Day was a point of gathering, our first whole family gathering for years, with the traditional roast being served. Dad had passed the baton to the kids, as he could no longer stand up to cook. We worked as a team to make the rib eye roast, the gravy and all the vegetables.

In a change for 2014, Dad was at home, for a brief period out of hospital in a year filled with dramas and emergencies. 'Hospital in the home' had been given a go, and the doctors were ministering to him with saline, pumping him full of fluid every second day, trying to keep his kidneys functioning enough to keep him alive.

By the Sunday of Father's Day, Dad was so bloated he could barely get up. Breathing was hard, and he clearly was not well. But as people do, he rallied for the event, ate and drank and made it through the meal. Afterwards he told me that didn't really enjoy the meat, as he couldn't really taste food anymore.

The next morning, drowning in fluid, we lifted Dad into a van and delivered him back to hospital. The road from there was traumatic: a near death fluid overload, heart strain, then opiate overdose and hallucinogenic delusions. The hospital stay led to a period in respite care, and for the first time we visited Dad in an aged care centre. A week before Christmas, he came home, with a dialysis routine sorted out, and the future ahead of him again.

This year has been an almost hospital-free year for Dad, and next weekend he will come to ours for a roast for Father's Day. I have put the wattle in the bottle at my place, oh yeah! Camparis all round, please, on the rocks, and stirred with bittersweet wattle.

Wattle in the bottle 2015 (c) Anna Sublet

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